Julian Mininsohn
Sports Editor
The women’s water polo team suffered a 10-8 road loss to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Saturday.
The Leopards’ fourth quarter comeback was not enough to propel the team to victory.
“Our ball movement needs to be better,” junior goalkeeper Jacqueline Rojas said. “Our shots need to be more precise. Also, their goalie had some good blocks.”
With the score 9-6 in favor of the Athenas, the Leopards received back-to-back goals from sophomore attacker Lora Marquez-Salgado and sophomore center Catie Tuning.
Senior driver Meghan Jimenez then followed with a goal of her own for the Athenas, clinching the victory for CMS.
“We worked very well as a team, but we needed to go low and high for our shots,” Marquez-Salgado said.
Marquez-Salgado scored four of the eight Leopard goals in the losing effort.It was close the entire game as no team had more than a three goal lead.
“Our defense and offense is a lot better,” head coach Alex La said. “At the beginning we wouldn’t even be in games like this and now we are. They are starting to believe in themselves.”
Despite the loss, the eight goals is the most scored by La Verne in any Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match this season.
“I think we can beat anybody,” La said. “Everybody is getting stronger. We are only going to improve from here on out.”
The Leopards suffered a 10-7 home loss to Chapman on Wednesday.
Junior defender Sarah Jefferis had a game-high four goals tying sophomore utility player Kate Avery of Chapman.
Rojas had nine saves in the losing effort as well.
With the pair losses, the Leopards fall to 4-19 overall on the season and 0-3 in SCIAC play. La Verne will continue SCIAC play as the take on Caltech at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the La Verne Aquatic Center.
That game will is the first of a doubleheader as the Leopards take on Concordia University at 2 p.m.
Julian Mininsohn can be reached at julian.mininsohn@laverne.edu.
